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Topic: Thursday vs Saturday (Read 1607 times)

BBF

Last Thursday was a reasonable day to go sit in an elevated stand hoping for a Bambi. Nova Scotia has a one deer limit in most places and Antlerless tags are on a Lottery basis in my area. I've got one of them and since I don't trophy hunt a nice Doe or button buck is much preferred for the freezer.

This stand belongs to a friend of mine and is located on the edge of a little island of trees in a big meadow. The Stand is smaller inside then some of the "One Holers" I've had the pleasure to sit. The door has a small shooting slot in it, and the wall to the left has a opening glass window. A bunch of apples were spread out against a series of trees to line up with the Door slot about thirty yards away.

One small chair 2 30 lb bags of apples leave very little room for the feet and the rest of stuff you need with you. I got there early in the PM around 1430 h and figured if any Deer would show it would be just minutes of shooting light left as usual.

As I was wriggling my bod into the chair scratching various body parts and still moving stuff around I happen to glance out of the window and darn near crapped myself.

3 Deer(Does) came prancing along heading for the apples!! It was just before 1500 hours !! What the heck??Now in retrospect it was funny. Not nearly so at that time. I had the ammo mag in one of the many pockets of my jacket. Did dig dammit dig where is the #$%^& thing ??

The Deer had stopped sort in line with the window which was not good for me because the chair and my arse were lined up with the door slot and I would have to rotate to the left to get lined up.

Got the Mag into the rifle and s l o w l y pulled the bolt back and it came back!! All the way out of the rifle and since I had a light grip on it, it slipped out of my hand and hit the floor.

Bambi's were getting nervous !!

Fred was almost crapping himself !!

I had the 308 Axis with me and this is not a short rifle to maneuver in a tight spot.

I did manage to poke the rifle out of the stand, I don't remember which one because by that time I saw three white tails waving at me good by, You're busted sucker !!

I was so ticked at myself it was a good thing a person's anatomy does not allow biting into your own arse !!

I gave myself one day off and returned to the same place on Saturday early. I wanted to be ready and this time I brought the shortest rifle I go which is A NEF Handi in 45-70 Govt

3 PM rolls around and nothing to see. I'm getting cold and cramped and had thoughts of getting up and going home. There is no Sunday hunting here so I figured it will be Monday and I will have to replace the apples on the ground.

1615 hours and SON OF A GUN the same 3 Does came bouncing into the meadow, I was ready, the chair and my arse were lined up properly so I could handle both the window or the slot. Being a southpaw that preparation is somewhat different than for most of you. I can cover targets from 12 o'clock to 3 o'clock but not anything towards 9 o'clock.

So the Bambi's came bouncing in and sort of stopped in the blind spot between the two windows. There are a few small pines and some poplars out in front. I could see one of two of them poking out either right of left but not long and clear enough to allow a shot.

Oh Oh, one of the Does the smallest of the three is getting real close to the stand and she has her sniffer up and is getting nervous. S O B !! I still haven't got a shot, right now and the action is more by the glass window while the rifle is poking out of the door slot and Bambi has her tail up and is prancing toward the other two.

Gently and s l o w l y I get the barrel back into the stand and equally carefully I poke it out of the other slot. I've got one deer head just clear of one of the pines but an awkward angle for me at 10 o'clock.

The the Great Provider smiled on the little worm( myself) and most of the front part of a deer(big one) showed up in the clear space between two pines. I had a look over the scope and wriggled the rifle around just a bit to make sure the bore wasn't lined up with a branch while the scope was all clear. (Poop can happen folks) !!

All was good and the Handi has a reworked hair trigger. That 405 grain Remington bullet did what it was designed to do. Man !! It took several minutes before my butt muscle released to chair and I could get up.

BBF

John:It did turn into a small circus on Saturday. Not that the Doe had a resurrection

I got a 2x4 pickup that would have gotten stuck in the meadow, we have had so much rain I forgot what the sun looks like.

Anyway a quick trip to my friend who has a small tractor with a bucket in front and a snowblower attached on the back. Top speed for that little Diesel job is probably less than 10 mph. So he says, go back to the deer and start field dressing it. I'm saying hey it is getting dark lets get it out of there, you have a barn and lights. He says, OK go back and wait for me on the road.

I get back and start looking for my License and Tag. Now Nova Scotia has a little booklet with all kinds of pages in it including the Regs and various BS letters from the Fish and Game Dept the Chief of the Native band here has a few words it it as well.

I pull out what I thought was the License and realized that this year the License was separate for the first time from the Regs and I had packed the Regs but no License................. S**T !!

So my Squarehead friend shows up after a while and I tell him the good news. He being from the old country and meticulous about everything says go back home and get the License, I'll go to the Deer.

Back into the truck and home, called up my neighbor who has a barn with block and tackle and made arrangement to hang the beast.

Back into the truck. when I got there the tractor is sitting on the road and not by the deer. WTF !?

Friend says lets cancel the tag etc and BTW I gave the Deer her last meal which is an Old Country tradition by placing a twig on the mouth of whatever you got.

I'm thinking, why is he back on the road if he was at the kill site.??

I hop on the back of the tractor, hanging on for life as we proceeded towards the game. It is blacker than a well diggers arse by now. SON OF A GUN. Nothing had been done by the Deer, not even a single little cut !! Because he wouldn't touch it until the tag got cancelled !!

The tractor does have headlights which light up the place but also blind you depending where you standso I said, never mind the butchering out here, I am getting cold, lets just load up and put the beast in my truck. Another trip back tothe road hanging on for life. We loaded my truck and I bailed.

Showed up at my other friends place and had to inform him that the deer wasn't field dressed at all. Well, he has a butcher shop and is a hell of a nice Dude so he got to work on it with I and wife helping a little. Most of what I did was to hold one of those Star War light that straps to your head right where it was needed.

I've found out in the past that if you got to many people working on a carcass with sharp knives, somebody is going to get hurt. So I fine watching someone else doing the carving. All got done in a jiffy. On Sunday my wife and I show up to skin the deer and found it was done already. Like I wrote, one hell of a nice guy.Tomorrow he will bring it over to my place and help( ha ha, he'll do most of it) cut her up.

congrats on the fat doe and surviving the circus. My lucky jar seems to have spilled and scattered everywhere, all the way from here to NS. Sorry about that. Good call on letting one pair of hands in the carcass.

It seems getting the deer was just the beginning! I tell ya what, you won't forget that hunt!

I shot my first mule deer in Utah many years ago. It included a two day drag to where I could load it into a vehicle. During the second day, I almost had to shoot 3 sorry excuse for hunters that tried to rob me of my buck.

Early on opening morning at 3 AM on the dirt road at the bottom of the mountain we were going to hunt, we ran into a roadblock of anti hunting protesters. It got really ugly. My pal and I drove straight through to Provo, Utah from Kansas City, KS to get there and arrived late in the afternoon after a 24 hour drive.

We zipped to the store, got our licenses and ammo, slept for about 3 hours, and then hit the road for Mapleton Mountain.

Yes, I was very short on words with the idiot protester blocking my way. He moved when I was about to crush his skull with my rifle butt.

The local sheriff showed up and informed the road blockers he was taking the rest of the day and the weekend off and if some protesters got hurt or killed, he and his office would check into it Monday morning if they had time to. The rest of the protesters got the message and melted away.

What looked strange, the big mule deer buck I had to drag for two days over boulders and brush had all his hair worn off, with his head and neck the only part of the body that had hair by the time I reached the road.

BBF

The meat is in the freezer, the little pup ate so much scraps he got the "Runs" for a day. We had our first meatloaf and it was A1. That is why I prefer Does or Button bucks, no stink& no wild taste. !!

The meat is in the freezer, the little pup ate so much scraps he got the "Runs" for a day. We had our first meatloaf and it was A1. That is why I prefer Does or Button bucks, no stink& no wild taste. !!

Can't eat the antlers, anyhow.

As far as your hunt, you folks way up nort like doing everything the hard way, eh? You tried to do everything right but everything went south!